Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Like, OMG!

This should be a law of pop cultural physics, it holds so true: if somebody says how "punk rock" something is (or, worse, "punk rawk") -- that person is a poseur (and in this day and age, far and away from Punk's unmarked grave, it's even more poseurish to be a poseur that way, like to even feel obligated to observe how "punk rock" something is).

Every time I've seen somebody marvel at something (or someone) and say "Oh, X is SO PUNK ROCK." That person who says it is invariably the most scenesterish, hipsterish poser type. They just are. I've observed it a number of times in the long span of years -- the tendency to observe how "punk rock" something was came about really in the mid-90s; before then, stuff was either good or it sucked -- no punk worth their safety pins would even make that observation, because you'd just know intuitively. There wouldn't be the need to narrate it, couch it, and otherwise claim it like that for some kind of unearned legitimacy. I remember working with a coworker who once exclaimed (without irony, for once, as he was a consummate hipster) "I'm punk rock! I pogoed to Superchunk!" That alone is worth a cockpunch, just on general principles.

There is a Zenlike art to it, to the intuitive knowledge of it and the anarchic spirit of it, and the people who try to lay claim to that are wusses in sheep's clothing. Lead, follow, or get out of the fucking way.

It matters because that fauxthenticity (yeah, another of my words) percolates far beyond Punk's long-dead corpse, and into the realm of proper art.

In other news, I'm very disappointed that The Urban Dictionary didn't accept "Daffodildo" as a new word. Wusses. They would have, back in the day. God, I hope they didn't purge "Cuntquistador" from their dictionary. Whew. No, they didn't. That's one of my greatest additions to the English language (along with "Errorgasm," "Gliberal," "Crapdusting," "Chickchismo" [apparently a UD Word of the day in '06], "Driveshaft," and "Vaginocity," to name just a few -- I have many more in there).